From: "deelusbybeekeeper" <deelusbybeekeeper@excelonline.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2000 23:01:52 -0800
Subject: Re:girls on small cells, regressing bees



Hi to all on Biological Beekeeping

This is in reply to Robert's post #37 on Thursday, Dec 21,2000 at 1:36 PM
during which he wrote:

<<The result is that most of us are keeping hybrids, as our beekeeping culture
is different to yours, and there is far less emplasis on buying queens.>>

Reply:

I don't think that the emphasis is as different as you may think. The larger
beekeepers might buy queens along with quite a few sideliners and hobbysts,
but by far the majority of beekeepers do not. As an example, around 1995
there were about 3.2 million honey bee colonies maintained by beekeepers in
the USA, The Gulf Port State breeders produced 483,900 commercial honey bee
queens which was a majority for the nation with the west coast breeders
producing less. This still left well over 2/3 of the nations colonies with
beekeepers requeening themselves, probably similarly the way you do.

Robert then wrote:

<<So what I'm going to need is a combination of natural beekeeping methods
with selective breeding, and some bought-in queens, to maintain a reasonably
'pure' stock. I suspect the latter may become easier once they have been
successfully regressed.>>

Reply:

This is so true Robert. Really nothing starts again with a new field
maintenance routine, until the bees are stabilized and regressed to gain
mite and secondary disease control. Once there you go forward!

Robert wrote:

<<So how do I go about combining both the 'natural' and the 'unnatural'
elements in a single programme?>>

Reply:

For you it will be easier as you only have one colony to regress, and you
can easily do that the way Barry did by shaking down and restarting the
colony on either starter strips and then foundation, or start with
foundation early in the spring completely.

Then you just keep the bees without using various chemicals. Basically, once
smaller you can purchase a good black queen to use locally, in the UK. Check
with your local bee breeders association. Nothing really changes except the
lack of internal treatments.

You still take honey the same. You still work the bees up the same in the
spring.The only difference is with small comb, you might have to add an
extra broodsuper to avoid conjestion, which many consider a small price to
pay, and also, see your bees more often to alleviate overcrowding and
manipulate them a little more.

We can talk specifics as you get into it more.

Regards;

Dee